Bad Coin
by Lady Kefka
Summary: Who we are and who we will be, aren't two sides of the same coin. Rather two coins bound together by a ribbon of salt, shaking, rubbing till they melt into one coin, one being, one tearful soul. The splinters of Ruvik's soul crawl over his neck soon he looks into the eyes of the man he should despise yet can't help but frame his face inside his palms. Hold it. And squeeze. Tew2 UA.


The streets that surround them groan with the tremendous effort to stay in place.

A building tore in halves seconds ago, taking most of the landscape with it. Sebastian watches the path he has come from make its leap into the abyss soon as he steps out on the porch. Thick waves of darkness mask the sky and put the dented street lamps to use. There is no going back, and what waits ahead is of no mild temper. He braces his hands on his knees and allows himself to struggle for breath.

The outline of his carotid still bulges underneath the thin layer of his throat, painting the fresh bite mark beside it in a wild carmine shade. Rookie mistake. He had acted like a fucking idiot back there. Forcing the gag reflex back down, the images he had seen in that house dance behind his eyes. He endures the burn that rotten teeth have left in his skin and calls himself lucky that the haunted have never proven to be infectious in _that_ sort of way. The Zombie way. If they had, he'd be pretty fucked by now.

 _You've come so far, love. And what for?_ It whispers in the back of Ruvik's mind while he watches Sebastian's bent-forward frame heaving air, awfully vulnerable to any attack coming forth or sideways. He'd rather die than say it out loud. But well, he's already been robbed of that option, isn't he? Poor mad devil; observing man.

After having fully recovered, Sebastian reloads his gun and looks for haunted in the distance, stoically trying to ignore the cloaked man's apparition a few meters beside him as he starts walking. He has done so since he has sunk into the cold bathtub and gave up on everything he could be in favor of what he'll never be again. His coins have split, past and present crashed apart to reveal the nothing between. What will be left of him once he's found Lily and realize that she is not the little girl she used to be? Ruvik knows. He has experience with memories that learn to betray their master. He won't tell him, though.

Instead, he traces the harsh intake of breath as it lifts his broad shoulders and how the exhale shrinks them back down. In. Out. In. Out. It's a regular movement, natural as pulse. Ruvik decides to use it as an anchor should complications arise. He is no fool to not expect _any._ Someone - the photographer / artist / nuisance - knows he's here. The priest has a hunch too but isn't sure yet. Ruvik uses his confusion to rip himself deeper into the laws of his realm. The forest reacts less hostile to his intrusion than the gallery did. He'll have checked everything once they get there. No surprises this time.

The town is a bigger problem. The feelers of his influence probe the matter of its blatant cosmos like a foreign beast fucked into existence for no reason. _Union_ they call it. More like _Union Jack-off_ as Sebastian would put it (for once, Ruvik doesn't mind his vulgarity). They know he's come, arrived along with a father who is determined to unleash second hell if that's needed to get his daughter back into his arms. Unfortunately, they haven't tasted fear yet. If Ruvik had the same amount of power as before, he'd teach them. Thoroughly.

Speaking of daughter; Ruvik has listened to repeated recordings of Lily's voice long enough to know that they're just about to reach a goddamn trap. Again. The Guardian has been the kindest one so far.

 _‚This girl is not the one you're searching for. Leave it.'_ His voice is a brittle remembrance of terror born. High whimpers and cries ooze from the walkie-talkie on Sebastian's hip as if to refute his statement. Sebastian stares at it like the men stared at the wall in Plato's cave, features full of yearning and oblivion. It takes one look for Ruvik to know he will go after the voice, no matter what he or anyone says. The sounds reek of fright and helplessness and he can't resist portraying the hero because who else does? No one. Not here. There is only him.

Three minutes pour into the silence between them and the female mewl piercing through. Clutching the device tight, Sebastian heads forward and his annoyed _pet ghost_ follows on numb soles.

 _‚He's come here to die.'_ Ruvik thinks while he broods over the unpleasant outcome they're going to face. ‚ _To roll from one grave into the other. To breathe in the fragility of his poorly guarded heart only to force his own head beneath the water, open his mouth and drown.'_

Ruvik actually would like to know how that feels like again. The emptiness. The stale flavor of bile caught in his throat. It's been too long that he felt similiar impressions. He would have loved to swap their experiences too, see if they aligned like stars tied to the same constellation. It takes aeons for a star's shine to vanish, he knows. Even after it implodes, no one could tell if it is dead or alive. Ruvik would have very much liked to be a star in this regard. To outshine the filfth even in self-destruction.

It's an enigma he could adore. Sebastian, probably, could not. He is an Adam to his earth - Ruvik remains the fallen one who'd have been happier to never set foot on its imperfect carcass at all.

They reach an abstrusely ordinary looking neighbourhood with abstrusely ordinary looking houses and abstrusely ordinary looking front lawns.

It's quiet; no sighing wind that sweeps through Sebastian's hair. Ruvik only sees locked doors and loose boards that have been hammered across the windows as cross-shaped barricades. The absence of groaning haunted is a bad omen to him. He could look around the houses to get an overview, but he would have to persuade Sebastian to invade them first. With their tense relationship at the moment, it would have been easier to escape STEM by finger snapping and punch the administrator in the throat while at it, so he saves the words. When he lets himself into a discussion with the former detective, it better be explicitly about the matters of life and death at stake.

Stressing slowly, he goes after Sebastian, oh so eager in following the signal like a hound that picked up the scent of prey. It keeps that way till his gaze falls upon a puddle of blood next to an open-wielded car door. The vehicle stands in the middle of the street, the dark outline of a man whose torso has been pulled out of it waiting behind the broken windshield. Sebastian stops, hand on his gun. His brows are drawn in thought.

It could be a bait. He knows this as much as Ruvik does, if not more. A charm for those whose heart is soft still, and their fear materialized in the search for allies to hide with. A spark of propriety inside the colossal cabaret of Utopia they are walking in, blinded and bleeding. Ruvik never had an ounce of compassion to share towards such lost creatures. They were food for the wicked, wasted breath that fogged the windows in late autumn night. A means to an end, basically. Their misery was none of his concern if not to enhance it. Unfortunately, Sebastian and he have never agreed on these matters which the former seems in dire need to prove as long as he lives.

With the gun clasped in both hands and pressed to his chest like a prayer book, Sebastian bends in the car's direction and dares to see what cowers behind that door.

He has barely set foot next to the puddle when the stench of organs spilled free and piss hits him like a vice. He puts an arm to his nose, but the smell has already found way into his sinuses. It brings back images of the house and the time when he woke up hanging upside down from a hook, waiting to be filleted like cattle. It's a man's corpse, face down and one dislocated arm hanging in the seabelt's loop. Casual clothes, a subject rather than trained Mobius staff. Nevertheless, Sebastian crouches down to touch skin and feel a pulse that has ceased to beat.

„Shit. He's still warm," he murmurs. Ruvik throws a critical glance over Sebastian's shoulder.

 _,You ought to put a bullet in his head before you leave. Except you want him to cause us trouble later.'_ Sebastian immediately bares his teeth in his direction.

„Don't tell me what to do."

Ruvik thinks about breaking his tibia for that, but quickly decides against it. It would only hinder their path until they find a medical kit or a syringe and he's already fed up with distractions. He waits till Sebastian added the dead man's ammo in the glovebox to his own stock and lifts himself up with a groan.

Ruvik gloomily licks his numb lower lip. Another approach, then.

 _‚I worry for you,'_ he says.

His words are softer than he remembers, yet they still cut stone at will. They make Sebastian halt in his movement, a characteristic snort in response. He turns then, both feet planted on this realm's dirt, wetted by old blood and young blood and bone marrow. Ruvik doesn't feel its texture, but he senses Sebastian's discomfort and the nauseous odor that makes his nose wrinkle in disgust. He also senses his distress in the fresh trickle of sweat on his forehead and the building rage in his slightly blown pupils. A rage as useless to wield as it is satisfying for the ghost to watch it grow.

This is the bane they've agreed upon. May Sebastian know it or not, may he like it or not - he won't get rid of him easily. He never truly was.

They stare at each other for a while. The whimpers of the device double, a scream for _someone someone_ goes unnoticed for once. Ruvik prefers it that way.

„Do you now?" Sebastian asks. He sounds dangerously low, feral even. His fists are clenched, short nails dug in the flesh of his palms. Ruvik is silent.

 _‚I can't tell you if I did before,'_ His arms hang to his sides like lead, unwilling to cross in front of his chest. _‚But now? I suppose so. It's rather necessary than wanted, though.'_

Sebastian does have a certain habit for leaving Ruvik angry and baffled at the same time. His laugh is thus as unexpected as it lacks any humor it could have contained.

„Well, that's great! Just what I need - another asshole catching the _caring-syndrome_. Sorry, but I don't buy your sudden change of heart."

 _‚This is not about you,'_ Ruvik counters. _‚It's -'_

„You are an illusion." Sebastian's eyes shine, but his tongue dips in the temperature of frozen meat. His gaze falters to keep Ruvik in its center and breaks upon the drying blood. „Another mind-fuck game of this world. The **real** Ruvik would have split me in quarters soon he got the chance. I pissed him off mighty for that. No, you're something else."

Does he almost sound disappointed, or is this a figment of Ruvik's imagination? He is honestly surprised that he can't tell right away.

He tilts his head, an inward sigh caught in breathless lungs. If still available, a headache would be in order. He _should_ have anticipated this behaviour from Sebastian. Ever aggressive, leery, the wounded animal of doubt. Some things never change. Except for the horrendous beard, apparently.

 _‚Is that so? I must have made a grave impression on you then. I am very real. For you.'_ He lifts his arm and Sebastian retreats, hand on his gun again, ready to fire. The old game. But this time, he has nowhere to go.

(Neither has Ruvik, but Sebastian doesn't know that yet)

Ruvik forms half a smile before he vanishes, his particles diffusing into nothing but the hunch of a shadow once thrown, leaving behind a space uninhabited. Seconds past they rearrange themselves inches in front of Sebastian's face, Ruvik's arm still stretched towards his direction. A single moment, the motion well-fit like a dance. His hand stirs, hungry for touch. The pad of his thumb lands on Sebastian's cheekbone, drags across fervid skin like sandpaper. He wonders if he feels it, how it affects him. Sebastian doesn't flinch, but his lips thin out, ashen-white.

 _‚Flatter me. How_ _ **real**_ _do I feel?'_ Ruvik breathes, adding pressure, cracking fragile, stubborn bone. His influence weaves across the hulkish frame like spider silk, enclothes it. _Mine. All mine._

First, Sebastian seems to choose silence over something he will regret much too quickly. Ruvik is a patient creature if the fee he gets is worth the wait. He concentrates further, seeks beneath the layers of flesh and sinews down to the wintry core of their host.

He pulls on each fibre like violin strings, plays a tune akin and familiar. Muscles strain, capillaries widen, pulse stutters. The eager choral of biological defect. All it takes is pushing a few buttons to make it snap, throw the hard-earned order into delicious disarray.

 _Make it snap_ is what Ruvik's born for. _Disarray_ is the domain he thrieves in. Carefully. Thoroughly. Lovingly.

Breaths bleed into minutes when Sebastian finally loosens the grip on his gun and allows its fall to the ground, the sound deafening as a shot unloads and the bullet flies a fingerbreadth past Ruvik's calf. His eyelids droop, shoulders sagging, pulse rate slowing down if only for a heart beat, no, two. He is almost pliant in the end, a body to mould and prepare for ritual purpose, eyes blank and spleenful. Ruvik treats himself to a full smile. Success. Success. How sweet the fruit of his labor's taste. Grapes of Wrath, ripe for the pluck.

 _‚Don't fight. You will only rescue that pawn when I deem you ready for it. Your poor shape doesn't guarantee victory.'_ His voice is ardent with devotion, fingertips ever pouring poison into each pore. It is then that Sebastian realizes, no matter who rules Union now, Ruvik is more dangerous in this state than he's ever been. Not to everyone; to him. Only him. The bastard's luck.

„How are you doing this? You should… have no control here." It's barely a whisper, like the air was scrubbed off his windpipe. His expression is an acrylic painting of distress, the heart gurgles between his lungs. Ruvik decides he likes the sound attached to this disgruntled face he's come to know better than his very own.

 _‚Not as much as in my world, no.'_ He offers a stroke above the spot where Sebastian's brow splits. A scar he's traced numerous times in dreams, its edged bow a well and vibrant memory of violence shed and received. _‚But having control over you? Like shooting fish in a barrel, really.'_

Sebastian can't help but growl at the touch as his nervous system drinks in the raw coldness of it, absorbing the notion into his blood. A blistering wave of satisfaction rumbles through Ruvik's chest in return. Again, he traces the scar, maddeningly. A boy's mark, a fight in the schoolyard when school had long finished. It was Sebastian against three and he used teeth against fists. Too bad the eldest had a knife springing free in his pocket. None of them played fair, but he gave it them hot either way. Ruvik can't put in words how prideful he felt discovering this particular detail of Sebastian's past. The roots of his strong will, tender and fledgling in their growth. The sight of his torn upper lip and the blaze in his big, childish eyes.

These eyes had been darkened by years of sorrow and pain, provided by a world a human deemed not fit for as long as he wasn't broken enough. Ruvik knows what eyes like these look like. He had mirrors back home after all, though he broke most of them in his teenage years.

 _‚You look lost, Seb,'_ Ruvik says thoughtfully. Sebastian has no words nor strength to defy the truth of it now. He can't deny that he has been lost for a long time, long before he even knew about STEM or Mobius, those self-glorifying bastards.

Worn-out and shallow is his walk, the load of a wasted life on his back like a sack of skulls. His ears are stuffed with whispering voices of folk whose humanity has been sparsely able to taste reasons to exist. And what for? He lowers his head to meet Ruvik's unyielding gaze, yet Ruvik knows he is the one the detective has blindly looked up to when the night shed its gown and pulled Beacon's walls down with the cloth, closing in, pursuing him. Bricked him in with his still screaming mouth.

 _‚You loathe me, don't you?'_ His blunt nails sketch lines in the aged makeup. The pressure bleeds fresh red beneath the shadows that dig holes underlining Sebastian's stare. _‚Say the words, my pet.'_

„I don't have time for this," he mumbles. It's weak and feeble like a newborn. It's hard to recognize his own voice even though his lips are moving. „Leave."

 _,I hope you do,'_ Ruvik continues, ignoring the command. _‚Hate lasts so much longer than love. Sometimes they might overcome each other, but I doubt that will be the case for us.'_ His eyes narrow, the fondness engraved in their deadly gleam bringing Sebastian's blood to a freeze. _‚It'll have to make due. For now. Till you see it through my eyes.'_ His hand slips off Sebastian's cheek and for what felt like eternity, the man opens his mouth and coughs up the air he's held in his spasming chest.

Ruvik disappears, fades like brown-pecked leaves tumbling down from their wooden crowns on autumn eve. He leaves the detective with nothing but his own thoughts to gabble at him. Once his body has remembered to function, Sebastian knees buckle in and he kneels on the floor, spit and bile watering earth and the dried carpet of blood.

„Go fuck yourself!" he croaks. Another retch. His curse rings sharp in the void, but can't bring itself to its usual fire.

The ghost is gone. And so is the knife wound in Sebastian's shoulder.

* * *

 _‚A syringe to your left, upper shelf.'_

Sebastian rubs dust from under his red-rimmed eyes and wonders if the concept of time might exist in this place at all.

His memories of the first STEM concerning this topic are vague at best. In his defense, he did not care much about time back then to begin with; he was too busy to flee from haunted and keep himself alive till he was able to find Joseph and Kidman. Lose them again. Find them again. The circle of life or some shit, he can't quite recall.

This time the environment is of quieter nature, if not less dangerous. He gives Union the benefit of the tube system in whose tunnels he has been wading for a while now. Astonishing enough they have remained untainted by creatures of any kind. Unlike some church catacombs… he has hunches of _these_ still. Phantoms of claws paired with moans. Crawling infants nibbling at his boots with toothless mouth. The wet squash when he stomped them down, turning them to a mush of limbs, the weak attempt of cries. Oh, he did not like what had lurked in there. At all.

He stems a flat hand against the wall, the stone's texture smooth and cold against his sticky palm. Looking forward, he scans the tunnel for doors leading him to adjoining rooms. In some of them had been machine parts and other useful trash to use to his benefit. What else could a simple man want? Except a shower, possibly. STEM was never big on those.

It is, however, the first syringe which - thanks to Ruvik - he is able to put in his pocket. He's in chipped condition, yet saves the device for a time a far more urgent need strikes. He has learned by now that keeping silent only encourages the ghost to speak up, but to thank him is not in his book either.

Thank Ruvik. Huh. That'll be the day hell - or Union - freezes over.

 _‚You're welcome,'_ Ruvik says nevertheless in that obnoxiously even tone that manages to resound through metal and cranial bone likewise. To Sebastian it's become the usual taunt. He shrugs a shoulder, then steps further along oil-stained barrels and murky lanes of sewage water. The smell aside, the change to the former outdoor facility he's come to known is a pleasant one. No haunted. No spider lady. No chainsaw (!) lady (God, he has seen way too many chainsaws in his life).

And no _fucking_ -

 _‚Trip hazard around the corner, twelve feet ahead.'_ Ruvik speaks so close to his right that Sebastian can't help but violently flinch.

„I don't need your help!" he snarls. Then he turns and peeks around said corner. It takes two minutes and squinted eyes to see a tiny red light on the tunnel's side blink him a warm welcome in the barely lit dark. He starts to curse in earnest.

So, they have trap wires too. This shit again. Fucking hell.

He senses how Ruvik looms behind him like a maliciously content cat, purring for it tore yet another sofa cushion to shreds. It makes Sebastian's body tense up. Since their last physical encounter, he is not keen on having the madman closer than as far as he can throw him. Considering his lack of training during the past three years, his range might have been far from great, but he was not averse to try his luck either way.

In secret, however, he has to admit that without warning he probably would have stumbled right into the wire. A fact that only increases his anger pointed at the ghost.

 _‚You should not reject what you barely know. As you can see, I can be of great avail if you let me.'_ Sebastian huffs. Yeah, that's exactly what he needs to hear at the moment. More cryptic one-liners mixed with insufferable teasing.

„I know **you** well enough."

 _‚Not as an ally.'_

Sebastian crouches down to deactivate the trap.

„You don't even have a clue how 'being allies' works," he mutters, the tip of his tongue pressed into the right corner of his mouth, fidgeting with the cable tangle. He impatiently sets the pointer in motion, waits for it to reach the blue slice. „You never had one yourself."

A small, but notable pause on the other side of their conversation.

 _,I had not many opportunities to do so, no. The basement isn't really the best place for socializing.'_

There, the pointer breaches the line. Sebastian reacts.

„Trying to make me feel sorry for you? Again? Too bad it never worked out."

 _‚I think we both know that is not quite true.'_

Sebastian hears steps. A presence - Ruvik's presence - approaching. The dry, frigid gauze of recurring death. Weightless like dust, whirling in moonlight. Instinct raises Sebastian's hackles. Does he have his knife with him? A solid weight on his right hip assures. Yes. Yes. Good.

Will it aim for flesh or ash when he pulls? Eye or chest, what hits best? He doesn't know anymore. Is almost glad not to.

The ghost stops right behind him. Sebastian holds his breath. A mere touch of fingertips and he's done for, he'll make sure of it.

A cold whiff grazes the sleeve of his shirt and bares the flesh of the curve of his neck.

 _‚The bite is still bleeding. You could use an upgrade,'_ is all Ruvik says. And Sebastian wants to slap himself because the faintest notion of concern he hears can't be real. It's a trick, it's the echo of his own mind… it's blasphemy.

The trap deactivates with a soft, disconnecting sound and the wire loses tension.

„Uhm… thought it had vanished along with the knife wound?" He is not sure why he says explicitly tried to repress the fact that the wound has ever existed at hears the small smile curled in Ruvik's reply.

 _‚You know it's a different one. I'd have cured it too if you wouldn't think about killing me soon as I so much as walk in your direction. You never stay unharmed for long, Seb.'_ The last sentence sounds like both a statement and a praise in Sebastian's ears. It runs shivers down his spine.

For the first time in hours, he dares to look at Ruvik directly.

„Do you know what happens when I go through those mirrors?"

Ruvik should, vaguely, remember how people shrug their shoulders in situations like these. His shoulders stay unmoved as ever. A corpse does not have to remember anything about human behaviour apparently.

 _‚A kind of recharge station.'_ Insecurity veils his words. _‚That's all I know. Though I'm linked to you, I can't go there. Something is keeping me away… I haven't figured out how to overcome it yet.'_

Sebastian considers this. He stands up with a groan, brushing dirt from his left kneecap.

„Good to know. I can't wait to get some quality time without you pestering me."

Ruvik saves to acknowledge the comment altogether. Before Sebastian can resume his walk, the ghost moves to stand in his way, eyes fixed, solid stance. His palms are open because his cruelest weapon hides in his piercing gaze. Sebastian's hand itches back to the knife.

 _,Since this place is quiet and you seem in a rather talkative mood at the moment - have you ever considered the possibility that Mobius is using you as a test subject for their own measurements?'_ Ruvik asks. It could have been casual. But nothing about Ruvik was ever casual to begin with, so it comes out unnatural and threatening.

Sebastian watches him with suspicion. There a many ways this could go, some of them very likely with him winding up dead. If he refuses, Ruvik won't have none of it. If he complies, who knows what else that fucker has in store for him? Still, Ruvik knows more about STEM than everyone else that he's come to pass here; and if he had wanted to kill him for real, he'd have done so already.

His lips thin out. No; albeit powerful enough to crush his clavicle with a flick, he _needs_ him. Maybe he can use this to his advantage. Maybe he can use _him_ for an exchange of information.

„You won't touch me." It's more of an order than a question. Annoyment flickers in Ruvik's eyes. His teeth show as he speaks.

 _,If that's what it takes to enable a decent conversation with you? Fine, I will not.'_

Sebastian nods; he lets go of the knife. Never taking his gaze off Ruvik, he leans with his back on the wall, arms crossing in front of his chest. Something tells him it's the wrong thing to do. But if he was eager to listen to common sense, he would not be here in the first place.

„Okay, then sure. Kidman told me right away."

 _‚Kidman does not know everything about Mobius. They don't trust her as much as they did before she entered STEM.'_

Sebastian shrugs. Hands unwrap again, find their route on his hips, closer to his gun.

„And what if? Like I'd care. It will be fine. Once I find Lily, I will -" He bites his tongue. „ _We_ will go home."Ruvik just stares.

 _‚And you think they will allow you to take her because…?'_

Sebastian's expression changes; eyelids and lips turn marble. Fingers dig deeper into the flesh underneath his cotton wool shirt. He doesn't feel the pain over the irritation that starts lurking underneath his skin.

„I'm not stupid. I don't need their permission," he grits out. He'd have rather thought about that later, _after_ saving Lily. But how could he forget? Ruvik is a stranger to mercy; and he loves to prove it.

 _,As much as I hate to admit, they run this place for now. They need you to retrieve her. They never said you could bring her home. Or that you could leave.'_ Ruvik tilts his head, as if examining an experiment he had forgotten about long ago, surprised by its progress - or degeneration. _,You're on a road leading to nowhere, Seb.'_

Sebastian snorts. Two minutes in and he's already received a damper on his ego. This was a bad idea.

„How about me asking questions for a change. What do you want, Ruvik?" He cocks his head, eyes hard and brooding. „There's no way I'll trust your manipulative ass, but I need to know your intentions. What is your gain by telling me this? Or do you just like being a pain in my ass? God knows you've been in there long enough."

Ruvik falls quiet at that. Typical. Once Sebastian actually wants the ghost to talk, he shuts up.

„I'm waiting," he snarls. Ruvik lets him wait. And wait.

 _‚I don't judge you for accepting Mobius' help,'_ he says at last. Sebastian knits his brows.

„Well, shoot me dead and call me Sally."

 _,I don't appreciate it either,'_ Ruvik continues blantly, _,But, given your circumstances, it probably served you a good reason to ditch the bottle, which is better than nothing. Besides, it gives me the opportunity to figure out what they have done to my creation.'_

„You couldn't do that on your own?"

Ruvik throws a sharp glance at him, tinted by... nervousness? He? Impossible. Exasperation is more like it. _You're starting to see ghosts, Castellanos,_ Sebastian thinks. And realizes that Ruvik is, in fact, the closest thing when it comes to interacting with a supernatural being if he's ever seen one in person. So, yeah; he's fucked.

 _,I will come to that.'_

Meaning ‚I will take my big-ass time as long as I please' in Ruvik speech. Sebastian hums. He glances aside.

„Do what you want. This isn't your creation anymore, by the way. They took your _baby_ and fused it with- "

 _‚Abominations, yes,'_ Ruvik interrupts _._ For once, his features grow spiteful in earnest. _‚The war photographer is one of them.'_ Sebastian looks up.

„How do you know he was in a war?" Ruvik turns away, the sewage coming into his focus. He stills for a moment; the reaction doesn't escape Sebastian.

 _‚I saw a photo in one of his galleries before his creature shooed me away.'_ He stares into the dark water as if he'd expect to see a reflection there. Sebastian follows his direction and is met with nothing but dim light creating a floating cone of the lamp above. _‚He's built himself a nest in city hall.'_

„What creature? The chainsaw-lady?" Ruvik shakes his head absently. The corners of his mouth have sunk in indignation.

 _‚No. Don't worry, you'll meet her soon enough.'_

„Great." Sebastian sighs at the rounded ceiling. „Just great."

He is startled back to attention by the splash of water piercing his eardrums like a bloated siren's shriek. His eyes pin on Ruvik who stretches his arm as he did mere hours ago, albeit less to reach for something in earnest than to use the center of his splayed out fingers as fixing point for… something else. As Sebastian leaves the wall and steps closer, he can see what Ruvik's trying to do. He furrows a brow.

The murky bile of the sewage has started to burble and blister underneath the ghost's palm as if heated by several degrees, cooking up like a noxious smells it sheds set Sebastian's sinuses aflame. He manages to spot torn limbs and knotted strands of hair emerge from the ground like the horror version of abandoned rubber ducks. Nausea rolls in his coffee and gel-filled stomach when the remnants of a lower jaw pop up in the middle like a crooked crown, its flesh gnawed off by god knows what and its little yellowed teeth clogged with splinters and black blood.

Lily still had all her baby teeth when she ‚died'. He knows because he had been the one getting up in the middle of the night when she cried, comforting her every time she teethed.

He looks away as the memory overshadows his face.

„What in the ever-living fuck are you doing?"

 _,Quiet. I need to test my capabilities in this world now and then.'_

„You couldn't have done that by squashing some haunted, I guess?" Sebastian asks, a harsh edge to it. Ruvik moves his palm a quarter turn to the right. The blistering stops. Instead, a coat of ice starts to line the water, thickening by the minute, rolling up the channel. It reminds Sebastian of the swarm of blood cells the ghost had been engulfed by each time he put another obstacle in motion. He takes another step back, just to be sure.

, _Water is easier to control than flesh,'_ Ruvik says simply _. ,Shaping one's surroundings proves to be more effective than mow down countless enemies. It was my pastime back then; among other things.'_ The ice shows small cracks as he blinks. He furrows his brow, the aqua in his iris inhumanly hardened by concentration. _‚I only have limited resources here. It's better to use them wisely than plenty as you do.'_ Sebastian rolls his eyes.

„If you th- wait. What is _that_ supposed to mean?" The ghost grants him a judgemental side-glance.

 _,You're rash, trigger-happy and don't tend to your wounds till you're at risk of bleeding out on the spot.'_ His austere tone cuts sharp and stern into the ex-cop's ears. _‚This might have worked in Beacon, but Beacon is no more. That is what_ _ **that**_ _means, Seb.'_

He balls his hand into a fist. The soiled water crashes down in a shockwave of bloodied, frozen splinters, cutting the smooth surface up and creating a clutter of iridescent shards. Some of them scatter on the ground, break upon stone. Sebastian's salty comeback dries up in his throat when they ooze and reveal their rotten core of glibbery eyes, skin and plucked nails.

„Jesus Christ!"

 _,Not quite, but you flatter me.'_

Ruvik puts his arm down, stare glued to the mess he made. It's small and meaningless in retrospect to what he was able to cause in the past and his pinched mouth tells Sebastian as much. Yet, he is a bit startled by how disappointed he looks too. Bitter? Yes. Disappointed? Not his forte. And not Sebastian's forte either.

„Beggars can't be choosers," he says. He gestures towards the scene. „At least you're able to do _something_."

 _,I will get better,'_ Ruvik bites back. Of course, every word is criticism to him. If Sebastian did not know better, he'd think he was ashamed.

He takes a good long look at the ghost. He scans the burnt profile that has born monsters and the pale eyes which nightmares are made of.

He once knew what it meant to have Ruvik's full power thrown upon him. Even though he can't remember everything, the notion of it has clung to his bones and engraved in his flesh.

If there is one thing he has learned back then when he was a detective at the KCPD, then that there is no worse decision than to encourage a beast before its slaughter.

...

A disappointed, delusional beast at that. A beast he is currently stuck with. Goddammit.

„I know you will." He clears his throat, gaze firmly pinned to the ground. „You've got more practice in that kind of thing than anybody else here, don't you? It's like riding a bike."

Ruvik turns his head at him, an expression akin to surprise unusually clear on his face. He opens his mouth.

His next words drown in favour of a deep, guttural howl in the distance that rumbles through Sebastian's every nerve. Then, the crack of a heavy body pulling itself through the sewage fragments. For a moment, both men still and look at each other.

„Ruvik?"

A pause.

 _,Yes.'_

„Please, just this time, tell me that was you."

 _,Certainly not.'_ Ruvik shakes his head as if he's waking from a trance. He glimpses at the dark, trapless tunnel. _‚The ladder is ahead. You might want to climb it up before it reaches you.'_ He tilts, listening attentively. _,It's coming from the left. Fast.'_

Sebastian doesn't need the tip. He can hear the stomp of multiple feet and the mewls just fine now.

„Fuck my life," he says with all the dignity he can muster.

Then he turns and hauls ass.


End file.
